


It's Not the Fall that Kills You

by Mitsuhachi



Category: Good Omens - Neil Gaiman & Terry Pratchett
Genre: Angst with a Happy Ending, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, M/M, fall from grace
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-12-06
Updated: 2015-12-06
Packaged: 2018-05-05 09:02:49
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,442
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5369534
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Mitsuhachi/pseuds/Mitsuhachi
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>"Oh Aziraphale," the figure inclined its blank face like a mother reprimanding an errant but beloved child. "You have been too long alone. The Serpent's lies suffice to cloud even the judgement of one of Our Virtues. We should have expected this." A glowing hand was extended towards Aziraphale, flickering like flame in the faint breeze. "Will you not repent?"</p>
            </blockquote>





	It's Not the Fall that Kills You

Aziraphale had been enjoying the breeze coming over the lake in Saint James' park when they first contacted him. It had been a particularly fine day: children were chasing each other down the footpaths, a young couple stood close by the water holding hands, and the tulips were blooming like anything. The air was positively balmy for London and the clean perfume of roses cut through the city's more usual scent of garbage and car exhaust. He had found an empty bench in the shade of an enormous old willow tree near the edge of the water and was taking a bit of a break from his crossword just watching the fountains spray tiny rainbows in the sunlight. 

The shade was rather spoiled by the sudden arrival, with a subsonic pop that made the eardrums ache, of an androgynous figure standing seven feet tall and composed entirely of a burning actinic glow. Aziraphale blinked.

The voice was like a full chorus, baritone and soprano in coruscating harmonies on every word. "Cherub Aziraphale?"

Aziraphale startled badly and dropped his paper into the wet dirt. "Ah--well, yes? That is, good afternoon, to what do I owe this pleasure?"

"We are concerned," said the voice like wind-chimes weeping. "Your recent actions cast doubt on your ultimate loyalties to Heaven. There are those who grieve already your Sundering from Us."

"Er." Aziraphale looked down at his paper and then away over the lake. "If this is about the whole, you know, the apocalypse thing, I have to say that I truly felt at all times that--"

"Oh Aziraphale," the figure inclined its blank face like a mother reprimanding an errant but beloved child. "You have been too long alone. The Serpent's lies suffice to cloud even the judgement of one of Our Virtues. We should have expected this." A glowing hand was extended towards Aziraphale, flickering like flame in the faint breeze. "Will you not repent?"

Aziraphale stared at the hand, fingers plucking absently at his discarded coat. "Certainly, if Heaven feels that my... judgement... has been in error in this matter, then of course..." He coughed a bit to clear a throat that suddenly wanted to close. "That is, I..." He looked up a bit helplessly. "What is it, exactly, that you want me to do?"

In the slender-fingered hand the outline of a golden knife began to take shape. "Renounce the Serpent, remove him finally and forever from Our Garden, and return to Heaven. We will heal your mind, o prodigal one, and welcome your return with rejoicing."

Aziraphale reached out his hand on pure reflex as the ornate hilt of a wickedly sharp dagger was held out for him to take. "I...I beg your pardon?" he asked. Surely they couldn't actually expect him to kill Crowley? They couldn't seriously...though he could feel the numbing tingle in his fingers even now of Serious Blessings on the knife. Something like this might well do more than just wreck a corporation...

"You shall receive it, if you are but penitent." The voice was beautiful beyond the mind's encompassing and surpassingly kind, and it made Aziraphale nearly sick with betrayed fury. He opened his mouth to demand to know what they could possibly think they were playing at, but before his baffled mind could sort out the words there was a baric pulse and a blinding light, and when Aziraphale could see again the figure was gone. 

In the water behind where the figure had been, a stunned mallard opened its beak and gave a bewildered quack. 

The breeze felt suddenly far too cold, Aziraphale thought, staring down at the slender, delicate blade glittering in the sunshine. In numb silence, he gathered his coat and muddied crossword and began the long walk back to his shop. He had plans for dinner, and really ought to be getting ready. 

Behind him the endless blue of the summer sky began to stain a faded red as the sun sank towards the horizon.

In a carefully unthinking daze, Aziraphale walked home. He set the dagger on the shadowed shelf below the register. He put his crossword in the new environmentally friendly recycling bin instead of the garbage. He hung up his coat, and changed into a new shirt--the current one was flecked with mud from the paper and damp with sweat besides and Aziraphale would not think about why that should be. He turned the sign at the front window of his shop to read 'closed: we will reopen at *a deliberately illegible scrawl of smeared pencil*' and locked the front door. And then he sat on his tall stool behind the counter and waited. In his lap, his hands were shaking; he couldn't seem to still them. 

Presently, the little bell above his door gave a merry tinkle and there came the sound of muffled footsteps passing between the stacks. Crowley never did bother about things like locks; it really was a great convenience. Aziraphale looked up wordlessly as the demon popped jauntily around the corner.

"Hi! Sorry I'm late, you know how the traffic gets at Denham, its terrible how they... Angel, are you alright?" Crowley crossed over to lean on the counter and peer closer at Aziraphale. "You look awful, what on Earth happened?"

Aziraphale stared silently at his friend. Deliberate and slow he catalogued every detail. The sharp angles of his jaw and nose, striking beside the unexpectedly lush curve of his lips. The faint spicy scent of his expensive cologne. The glitter of gold in cufflinks and tie against his black suit mimicking in memory the inhuman shine of pale gold eyes against dark skin. Six thousand years of trading discorporations and information and favors and good wine and--precious, precious--a few kind words. "You were enough of a bastard to be worth liking," Crowley had told him. How much of a bastard was he, really? How much could he stand to be?

Beneath the counter, Aziraphale's hand reached blindly towards the knife. 

And drew back empty. 

"Nothing," he said eventually, and turned to get his coat so he wouldn't have to meet Crowley's eyes. "Just a...you know, a bit of bother with a customer earlier, easily enough set right. Put it out of your mind, my dear."

Crowley was frowning at him when he turned back. "A customer, was it? The shop looked pretty quiet, I thought." He met Aziraphale's eyes with an unvoiced question.

"You really are, you know," Aziraphale heard himself saying, somewhat unsteadily. "Quite...quite dear to me. Its been a privilege." Crowley put a restraining hand on Aziraphale's arm, and opened his mouth as though to speak. 

Aziraphale ducked past him towards the door. "We'd best be getting on. Dahlia closes by eleven, and you know they never have the duck tsukune late in the evening..." 

"You don't even like the duck tsukune," Crowley objected reflexively, following after him with a frown. "Last time you said it was too rich, and it muddled all the other flavors. Have the eel instead. They serve it with a sour plum sauce, you'll love it."

Heaven doesn't know a blessed thing about plum sauce, Aziraphale thought rather nonsensically as Crowley waved open the Bentley's passenger door. He sat and watched as Crowley started the car and played absently with the tape deck for a moment. The quiet strains of _La Passionata_ (vocals by F. Mercury) began to mix with the rumble of the engine. 

"You know, if there's trouble..." Crowley started quietly, fussing with the mirror. "I mean, it'd be completely within the scope of the Arrangement if you needed..." Crowley drifted off into an awkward mumble and adjusted his sunglasses before he coughed and tried again. "If you need help, you know you just have to ask, right? Anytime." 

Aziraphale placed one soft hand over the thin-fingered one on the stick shift. "I do," he promised.

A faint dusting of pink high on Crowley's cheekbones was almost invisible between the shadows of night and the darkness of his skin. He coughed again, theatrically, and threw the Bentley into reverse. "Alright then, so long as that's understood," he said, pulling backwards into traffic at roughly forty miles an hour. 

Aziraphale closed his eyes and clutched the door handle and tried not to think about gold glimmering in the darkness.

******

The dagger sat on the shelf for three weeks. Every day, Aziraphale went downstairs, ran his errands, opened the shop for twenty minutes (or didn't, when he didn't feel like it), fed the ducks, and generally carried on with his life. And every time he walked past the register, he could feel the tingle in his fingers again, the faint pulse of divine power like gravity urging him "obey". And of course he would, eventually, he told himself every time. He was an angel, he couldn't not do what he had been told. It wasn't in his, you know, basic nature. 

Just, not yet. He couldn't very well just stab someone who was about to buy him sushi. It would be frightfully rude, for one thing. And then there had been that ruckus with the teacher's union striking, and he'd been so terribly busy. And then somehow, for some reason, their paths simply hadn't seemed to cross. This of course had nothing at all to do with Aziraphale ducking out of the bookshop at ungodly hours of morning, or feeling the sudden urge to keep late-night vigils at the children's hospital on their usual dinner nights. If he worked enough he didn't have to think, and there was always someone in the city who needed a miracle.

Aziraphale leaned his forehead against the cool wood of a dusty shelf. In the back office, the telephone was ringing. It rang often these days. He waited without moving until it went silent. He wanted to stop for just one moment and rest. He wanted to go back there and call Crowley back and tell him to come over, please, and listen to the demon totally mangle the plot of whatever television programmes he'd been following lately. He wanted a drink.

He rubbed his face wearily and pushed away from the stacks. There were homeless men at the park who could probably do with a warm meal that didn't cost them hours of guilt and sermon. When he left the bookshop he didn't see the faint glow beginning to resonate from beneath the register.

*****

He stumbled back into the bookshop at almost three thirty in the morning. The front of the shop was lit, just as it ought to be, only by the faint reflections from the streetlamp outside. Aziraphale leaned against the inside of the closed front door and let his eyes close for just a moment. They were burning because he kept forgetting to blink them. Perhaps he ought to make a cup of tea. Somehow there hadn't seemed to be time to actually sit down and eat anything for...he wasn't sure. Quite a while now, he supposed. No matter, it wasn't like this body actually needed it. 

He forced his eyes back open and staggered back towards the stairs to the back room. He ought to at least change his clothes before he went back out. It wouldn't do to worry the children at the hospital. He pushed the door open with an elbow, already halfway through unbuttoning his shirt.

Crowley was sitting at the table in the back, a faintly glowing dagger in front of him.

Aziraphale gawped shamelessly and could not for the life of him think of a single blessed thing to say. 

Crowley, as always, stepped in where he couldn't. "When were you going to tell me?" he asked in a low, dangerous voice. He didn't look up from tracing the elegant filigree on the dagger's handle. 

Aziraphale made himself close his slack jaw. Crowley traced one long finger along the edge of the blade, and suddenly it was absurdly difficult to find his breath. "I...never?" he tried.

He could feel the leashed anger in the gaze Crowley flicked up towards him even hidden behind darkened glass. He stood up and crossed over to hiss right in Aziraphale's face. "Really? So you were just going to...what? Ignore it forever? Work every hour God sent and never see me again?" Crowley's lips were pinched tight and Aziraphale couldn't look away. "What did they--"

Crowley's question was cut off though by the sudden brilliant radiance emanating from the weapon on the table. "What now?" he snapped, and it overlapped Aziraphale's breathless "No..."

The glorious illumination coalesced into the featureless outline of a human form, tall and perfect and somehow unreal in the dusty comfort of the little room. "Cherub Aziraphale," it asked in a voice like multitudes. "Why do you hesitate?"

Aziraphale held his shirt closed awkwardly with one hand, trying to edge in front of Crowley. "I... Well, you see, it's been rather... You know, with the circumstances and such, and things being as they are..."

"Excuse me?" Aziraphale scrunched his eyes in a helpless cringe as Crowley glared over his shoulder. "Could someone please tell me what the hell is going on?"

The figure flared like a bonfire, blazing with ascendant wrath. "You are judged, Serpent, for your crimes against the Heavens and Earth, and against Our representative to mankind. Though he has Faltered, yet he may still Redeem himself in Our eyes by your destruction." The blank and beautiful gaze shifted to Aziraphale. In the heart of the flame the dagger floated, drifting on a soundless wind towards him. "It is time, child. There must be no more delay."

Aziraphale watched his finely manicured fingers wrapping around the hilt of the knife. It was so light. Nothing at all compared to the weight of a sword. He felt the comforting warmth of Crowley standing close behind him. He looked up at the Seraph. 

"No."

The Seraph pulsed with a questioning burst of light. "You must. It is the Will of Heaven. No angel can disobey." To the very core of his soul, Aziraphale knew it was Truth. Very calmly, he folded his hands over the knife.

"No."

Aziraphale gazed mildly at the outraged figure and waited for the wave of obliterating fire. Instead he got a slender hand taking his elbow in a punishing grip. 

"Excuse us just a moment, would you?" Crowley said suddenly, flashing the Seraph a winning grin as he pulled Aziraphale with him a few steps backwards. "What do you think you're doing?" he hissed.

Aziraphale arched an unimpressed eyebrow at him. "I'm sorry, did you want me to smite you?" he whispered back. "Final Death sounds good to you, does it?"

"Of course not! But you can't just--look you know the rules! You're going to Fall, you realize that? It's really not as fun as you might imagine, angel. I can't recommend it." Crowley's hand was very warm where he was still clutching at Aziraphale's arm. His breath smelled faintly of sweet rum.

"It'll be alright, my dear," Aziraphale said, patting Crowley's cheek. "You handled it just fine, I'm sure I could endure it too."

"Aziraphale--" Crowley's voice twisted like the name hurt him to speak.

Behind them the celestial figure cleared its throat pointedly. Aziraphale blushed and dropped his hand like it had been burned. 

"We ask you a final time, Cherub Aziraphale: will you not repent?" The voice was unbearably gentle, high and low at once. 

"Angel, don't..." 

Aziraphale closed his eyes, clenched his fists and winced with shame. He took one dragging step towards the Seraph, and then another, drawing Crowley with him like a prisoner to the execution block. Golden light soft and warm as forgiveness swelled all around him. Without opening his eyes, he lifted the knife.

And then turned and plunged it into the Seraph's chest in one smooth motion. There was a single moment of breathless stillness and then a great swirling wind and a sound like a hundred thousand bells ringing all at once. Aziraphale let his wings unfurl through the shredded fabric of his shirt, curling them protectively around himself and Crowley both as the room became a storm of loose papers and splintered wood and scraps of fluttering fabric tangling all around them. Head ducked trustingly under his wing, Crowley shouted "Nice one! If you weren't in trouble before this should do it!"

Aziraphale could barely parse the words. At the still, eternal center of his being he felt something flicker and die, and he was suddenly aware of being horrifically, monstrously alone in a way he'd never before so much as imagined. There was no Ineffability that could make Crowley's blood on his hands right. He fisted his hands tightly in Crowley's jacket and felt his face grow wet.

After maybe two dozen heavy heartbeats the winds began to still. When Aziraphale dared mantle back his wings, the room was empty--and wrecked. His bed and table were overturned and in pieces. Stray bits of paper littered the ground. There was a scorched patch on the carpet nearly a meter wide, and another on the ceiling. Somewhere outside a car alarm was blaring. 

"At least now you won't have to worry about paying to fix the damages," Crowley said, irreverent and numb. Something had scraped his cheek in a wide shallow arc. Aziraphale itched to heal it and was terrified to make an attempt. What if he couldn't? Crowley actually looked down at him, eyes focusing from their stunned glaze. One of the lenses of his sunglasses had popped out and shattered. "I think we'd better go back to mine for now," he said decisively.

Aziraphale stared at his hands as Crowley guided him down the stairs and outside. He stared at them in the Bentley as they drove surprisingly sedately through London's streets, and he stared at them as Crowley drew him stumbling into his building's elevator. He sat on Crowley's cold stiff couch and stared until Crowley came back and pressed a mug of tea into them, draping a woolen blanket over his bare shoulders. "Are your people hiring, do you suppose?" he asked in a very small voice. 

Crowley laughed. 

"You opposed me for six thousand years, defied Lucifer himself, and just straight up murdered one of Heaven's Most High," he said sardonically, sinking down on the couch beside Aziraphale. "I think they'll probably want to offer you asylum, yes."

"I can't... I can't feel Him, Crowley." He admitted, setting the mug down on the bare glass coffee table so that he could rub his face. It was prickly with dried tears. "There's nothing there, its just me. How do you stand it?" 

"You get used to it," Crowley murmured. "You should have told me, angel, we could have--"

"Not," Aziraphale interrupted. "Not anymore. You oughtn't call me that."

"We could have come up with something," Crowley continued, talking over him as though he hadn't heard. "We could have...I don't know. We could have tried something, anyway."

"Too late for all that now, in any case," Aziraphale said with a heavy sigh. "They wanted me to kill you, Crowley. Do you quite understand that? I couldn't do it. I won't, not ever, not for anything. I'll fight all the rest of Heaven up to God Himself over this, and Hell too if they care to push it. You will simply have to come to terms with it, my dear." 

He looked up very seriously to meet Crowley's eyes, and frowned when the demon startled. "What?"

Wordlessly, Crowley pointed to the sleek, silver-framed mirror taking up most of the room's western wall. Aziraphale squinted near-sightedly and then stood to walk closer and inspect his reflection. 

For six millennia, his human vessels had borne eyes of silvery cloudless blue. It was the one characteristic that never changed, no matter how many different bodies he wore. So for a long moment he almost didn't recognise the face looking back at him in the mirror as his own. It was shaped like his latest face, slightly careworn and a bit thinner now than it had been a month ago, but serviceable all the same. But the eyes had gone an opaque red, so dark they were almost black. Just as inhuman as Crowley's ever were. 

Demon's eyes. 

Over his reflection's shoulder, he met gold-slitted snake eyes shining in the dim light. "I'm so sorry," Crowley started, but stopped when Aziraphale laced laced their fingers together.

"I'm not," he said simply.

Crowley squeezed his hand in return. "I'll try to see you won't be."


End file.
